264 
Frank Carney 
1796 drew a map of northeastern Ohio; on this map, he makes 
the first reference, so far as I can ascertain, to the Lake Erie shore 
lines. Accompanying the map is a brief description in which he 
refers more in detail to some of the deposits, now known to be of 
glacial and lake origin, about the lower part of Cuyahoga river. 
In the second annual report of the Geological Survey of Ohio, 
published in 1838, on p. 55, Col. Charles Whittlesey refers to the j 
beaches skirting Lake Erie. It would indeed be surprising not I 
to find in these early documents references to the lake ridges — i 
they are so conspicuous a feature of the landscape. The Indians j 
selected these ridges for their paths, and the first settlers located j 
their highways and dwellings on them. Colonel Whittlesey’s 
comments are very brief. 
The first even casual study of these beaches was by Sir Charles | 
Lyell, the British geologist, in 1842; he followed two of the ridges 
for much of the distance between the Cuyahoga and Rocky rivers. ■ 
He suggested methods by which they might be more correctly ' 
interpreted, lamenting that he did not have the time to ascertain i 
whether fresh or marine shells were to be found with the gravels. I 
He gave it as his tentative opinion that the “Middle Ridge j 
( fig. i) in particular appears to be subaqueous in origin. 
In 1870, G. K. Gilbert studied the raised beaches in the Mau- 
mee valley; this work is probably the first rigorous study of shore- 
phenomena associated with ice-front lakes. Gilbert mapped the 
four beaches which indicated the levels of Lake Maumee and the 
succeeding bodies of water held up by the Erie lobe. Since his 
field of investigation was limited to the northwest counties of the 
State, he did not follow the beaches very far to the east nor to the 
north. Gilbert’s methods of studying these ridges, as well as 
many of his conclusions, were entirely new to the science of geology; 
some of his interpretations he himself altered later. 
The same volume which contains Gilbert’s map on the beaches 
of the Maumee lobe, also contains J. S. Newberry’s article on the 
Geology of Cuyahoga County; in this, Newberry devotes about four 
pages to the lake ridges. 
In the succeeding volume of the Ohio Survey, A. A. Wright and 
J. S. Newberry published a more detailed description of these 
^ The discussion of these beaches can be followed to better advantage if you have 
at hand the three topographic sheets involved. 
